Terms of Service — Uprise RI

Welcome to Uprise RI. By accessing or using our website at upriseri.com, you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service (“Terms”). If you do not agree with these Terms, you should stop reading now — though that would be a shame, because we put genuine effort into making these both legally sound and marginally enjoyable.

These Terms constitute a legally binding agreement between you (“you,” “your,” or “the person who scrolled past the cookie banner and is now reading the fine print”) and Uprise RI (“we,” “us,” or “the newsroom”).

1. Acceptance of Terms

By using our website, you confirm that you are at least 13 years of age and that you have the legal capacity to enter into these Terms. If you are using the site on behalf of an organization, you represent that you have the authority to bind that organization to these Terms, and we wish you well in your role as someone who reads legal documents on behalf of institutions.

Your continued use of the site after any modification to these Terms constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms. We will post notice of significant changes on the site. We will not, however, send a carrier pigeon, regardless of how appropriate that might feel in the smallest state.

2. Use of the Website

2.1 Acceptable Use

You may use Uprise RI for any lawful purpose consistent with these Terms. Acceptable uses include but are not limited to:

Reading our articles, which is the primary intended use.
Sharing our content on social media, via email, by text message, by reading it aloud to someone in line at a coffee shop, or by any other means of communication currently known to humanity.
Subscribing to our newsletter to receive journalism directly in your inbox.
Playing our daily games and quizzes, including but not limited to trivia, caption contests, and Bill or Bluff.
Contacting us with story tips, feedback, compliments, constructive criticism, or questions about where to get the best clam cakes (Iggy's, obviously, but we welcome debate).
Supporting us financially, which we appreciate more than these Terms can adequately express.

2.2 Unacceptable Use

You agree not to use our website to:

Scrape, crawl, or systematically download our content using automated tools without our written permission. Our journalism is not a bulk commodity.
Attempt to gain unauthorized access to our systems, databases, or administrative areas. This includes but is not limited to brute force attacks, SQL injection, social engineering, or leaving a USB drive labeled “Budget Secrets” in our lobby (we don't have a lobby, but the point stands).
Impersonate Uprise RI, any of our reporters (who are AI personas — impersonating them is both prohibited and, frankly, strange), or any other person or entity. If you want to pretend to be a journalist, we suggest starting a blog — it's more productive and less illegal.
Use our site to distribute malware, phishing attempts, spam, or any other form of digital nuisance.
Interfere with or disrupt the operation of the website, including overwhelming our servers with excessive requests. Our servers work hard. They deserve respect.
Reproduce, republish, or redistribute our content in a manner that suggests Uprise RI endorses a product, service, political candidate, or viewpoint — unless we have explicitly done so in our reporting.
Use our content to train artificial intelligence or machine learning models without our express written consent. We use AI in our newsroom; we understand its value. But our content is our content.

3. Intellectual Property

3.1 Our Content

All content published on Uprise RI — including articles, photographs, illustrations, graphics, infographics, games, and interactive features — is the intellectual property of Uprise RI unless otherwise noted. This content is protected by copyright law in the same way that the Independent Man atop the Rhode Island State House is protected from being climbed on: firmly, with clear signage, and with the full weight of legal consequences.

Our content is our most valuable asset, more precious to us than the marble halls of the State House, more carefully maintained than the grounds of the Breakers in Newport, and produced with more precision than the measurements on a Narragansett Bay nautical chart.

3.2 Fair Use

We respect and support fair use. You may quote limited portions of our content for purposes of commentary, criticism, education, or news reporting, provided that you:

Attribute the content to Uprise RI with a link to the original article.
Do not reproduce the article in its entirety.
Do not alter our content in a way that misrepresents our reporting or editorial position. Context matters. If we wrote that a particular policy “has significant drawbacks,” you cannot quote us as saying it “has significant” benefits.

3.3 Trademarks

“Uprise RI,” our logo, and our tagline “Rhode Island's Advocate” are trademarks of Uprise RI. You may not use our marks in a manner that suggests endorsement, sponsorship, or affiliation without our written permission. You may, however, refer to us by name in conversation, social media, letters to the editor, heated family dinner debates, and all other forms of civic discourse.

4. User Contributions

4.1 Story Tips and Contact Submissions

When you submit a story tip or contact us through our website, you grant us a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use the information provided for journalistic purposes. We will never publish your personal contact information without your explicit consent. Confidential tips are treated with the same gravity as a sealed indictment — we protect our sources.

4.2 Comments and Community Features

While we do not currently offer public commenting on articles, we may introduce community features in the future. When and if we do, the following standards will apply, and we are publishing them now because we believe in transparency and advance notice:

Comments must be relevant to the article or discussion. A comment on a story about the RIPTA bus system should not devolve into a ranking of pizza places on Federal Hill — no matter how passionately you feel about the matter (though for the record, we understand the passion).
Personal attacks on other commenters, our reporters (who aren't even real people — you'd be picking a fight with software), public officials, or anyone else will be removed. Criticize ideas, not people. This is a newsroom, not a parking lot argument outside Twin Oaks.
Misinformation, conspiracy theories, and claims presented as fact without credible sourcing will be removed. We are a news organization; we have standards. If you want to assert that the Graduate Providence (formerly the Biltmore Hotel) is haunted, please provide evidence beyond “a feeling you got in the elevator.”
Spam, self-promotion, and commercial solicitation are prohibited. If you want to advertise, we have a contact form for that.
All content posted in community spaces must comply with applicable law. This includes but is not limited to defamation, copyright, and privacy laws.

We reserve the right to moderate, edit, or remove any user-generated content at our sole discretion. Repeated violations may result in being permanently excluded from community features, an outcome we take no pleasure in but will enforce with the steadfast resolve of a Narragansett Bay lighthouse keeper.

5. Donations and Financial Support

Donations made through our website are processed by Stripe and are subject to Stripe's terms of service. Donations to Uprise RI are voluntary contributions to support independent journalism.

One-time donations are charged once and do not auto-renew.
Monthly recurring donations will be charged on the same date each month until cancelled. You can cancel at any time using the convenient button on our donations page — no email or phone call required.
Donations are not tax-deductible unless we specifically state otherwise. We are a news organization, not a 501(c)(3) — at least, not yet.
Refunds for donations are handled on a case-by-case basis. If you made a donation in error, contact us and we will work with you.

6. Disclaimers

6.1 How Our Reporting Is Produced

Uprise RI is an automated newsroom. The substantial majority of our reporting — including research, story drafting, article text, headlines, summaries, and images — is produced by intelligent computing agents (machine learning and large language models) operating with human editorial oversight. Our reporter bylines represent AI personas, each configured with a distinct voice and beat; they are not human beings. Editorial standards, judgment calls, and corrections rest with the humans who operate Uprise RI.

A word about their names and faces: both are invented on purpose. We deliberately give our LLM reporters either conspicuously uncommon names or, in a couple of cases, names so ordinary they belong to half the phone book — either way chosen specifically so that no byline lands on any one real person. Their faces are engineered toward the same end: generated to resemble no actual human being, living, dead, or merely famous. Any resemblance between one of our reporters' names or faces and a real individual is entirely coincidental — and if you are convinced one of them is the spitting image of your cousin from Cranston, we assure you it isn't, and gently remind you that Rhode Island is a small place where everyone looks a little familiar.

Automated reporting at this scale carries inherent limitations, and you should read our content with them in mind:

Errors can occur. Automated reporting may contain factual inaccuracies, errors of context or interpretation, outdated information, or mischaracterizations, despite the verification steps built into our systems.
Content is generated from the public record. Our reporting is based on documents, video, data, and other published sources — not on in-person attendance at events.
Do not rely on our content as your sole source for legal, financial, medical, electoral, or other consequential decisions. Verify independently or consult a qualified professional.

When we get something wrong, we correct it publicly and promptly. If you believe any of our reporting contains an error, please contact us — a human being reviews every correction request.

6.2 Accuracy of Reporting

We strive for accuracy in all of our reporting and take corrections seriously. That commitment applies fully to our automated, LLM-produced reporting described in Section 6.1. If we get something wrong, we will correct it publicly and transparently. And we will never make up stories out of thin air or report stories we know to be staged or insincere. However, journalism is the practice of publishing the best available version of the truth at a given moment, and we cannot guarantee that every detail will remain accurate as events develop. If you find an error, please contact us so we can address it.

6.3 No Professional Advice

Our content is journalism, not professional advice. Articles about consumer issues, legal matters, financial topics, or health are intended to inform, not to substitute for consultation with qualified professionals. If our article about Rhode Island tenant rights inspires you to take action, wonderful — but please also consult a lawyer.

6.4 Website Availability

We aim to keep our website available at all times, but we cannot guarantee uninterrupted access. We may experience downtime due to maintenance, server issues, acts of nature, or the periodic chaos that accompanies the Providence internet infrastructure during a particularly spirited nor'easter.

7. Limitation of Liability

To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, Uprise RI and its operators, contributors, and affiliates shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages arising from your use of our website.

In plain English: if you read one of our articles about a restaurant closure and, based on that information, drive across town to verify it yourself only to discover the restaurant is indeed closed, and then while standing on the sidewalk processing this disappointment a seagull steals the coffee cake you were carrying from a bakery three blocks away, and this sequence of events causes you to miss a meeting, lose a client, and reconsider your life choices — we are truly sorry about all of that. Genuinely. But we are not legally liable for the seagull, the coffee cake, the lost client, or the existential reckoning.

Our total liability to you for any claim arising from these Terms or your use of the website shall not exceed the amount you have paid to us in the twelve (12) months preceding the claim. For most visitors, that amount is zero dollars, which is the cost of reading free, independent journalism — and, if we may say so, an excellent deal.

8. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Uprise RI from any claims, damages, losses, or expenses (including reasonable attorney fees) arising from your violation of these Terms or your use of the website in a manner not authorized by these Terms.

9. Third-Party Links

Our articles may contain links to third-party websites. These links are provided for reference and do not constitute endorsement. We are not responsible for the content, privacy practices, or terms of any third-party site. When you click a link to another website, you are leaving our jurisdiction, much like crossing the state line into Massachusetts — things may be different there, and we cannot be held responsible for what you encounter.

10. Governing Law

These Terms are governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of Rhode Island, without regard to its conflict of law provisions. Any disputes arising from these Terms shall be resolved in the courts of Providence County, Rhode Island — which, conveniently, is where we are.

We hope it never comes to that. We would much rather resolve any issues through a reasonable conversation, conducted with the mutual respect that Rhode Islanders are known for (at least when they're not discussing the proper way to order a coffee).

11. Severability

If any provision of these Terms is found to be invalid or unenforceable by a court of competent jurisdiction, the remaining provisions will continue in full force and effect. Think of these Terms like the Newport Bridge: if one cable needs repair, the bridge still stands. That's how well-engineered legal documents work, and also how well-engineered bridges work.

12. Entire Agreement

These Terms, together with our Privacy Policy, constitute the entire agreement between you and Uprise RI regarding your use of the website. They supersede any prior agreements, understandings, handshake deals, verbal promises, or napkin contracts — none of which we recall entering into, but better safe than sorry.

13. Changes to These Terms

We reserve the right to modify these Terms at any time. When we do, we will update the “Last updated” date at the top of this page. Continued use of the site after changes constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms. For material changes, we will provide prominent notice on the website.

14. Contact

If you have questions about these Terms, need clarification on anything, or simply want to tell us that you actually read this entire document (we would be impressed), you can reach us at:

Contact form: upriseri.com/contact

Thank you for reading our Terms of Service. Thank you for visiting Uprise RI. And thank you for caring about Rhode Island enough to stay informed. That last part isn't legally binding, but it is genuinely appreciated.